


America

by Nympholouis (hollytabatha)



Series: The Bookends Drabbles [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: American AU, Bookends Drabble, Drabble, M/M, once again this is based off simon & garfunkel's song America, roadtrip au, so give it a listen!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 13:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollytabatha/pseuds/Nympholouis
Summary: Harry longs for the American Dream, and Louis just wants out of their town, so they go to look for America.I've gone to look for America- America, Bookends, Simon & Garfunkel





	America

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of the Bookends Drabble Series! 
> 
> Original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM
> 
> Tumblr post: https://nympholouis.tumblr.com/post/187094049777/the-bookends-drabbles-a-collection-of-drabbles

Harry has always followed Louis.

He followed him around Kindergarten, thumb in mouth and wide eyes fixed on the older boy, He followed him up to his tree house, rubbing his thin shoulder as he teared up over the raised voice of his father, and he followed him into adulthood; through dead end jobs and cheap alcohol. 

And today, he followed Louis to the park.

They’re sat kicking pebbles on a bench in the park, if you could call it that. It’s more a few dead trees and a rusted swing set, but they still make it their meeting point, when they need the comfort of being silent together. 

“I hate this place,” Louis mumbles, kicking another pebble harsher than the last. 

Harry just hums, he’s heard it all before. 

Louis sighs dramatically at the lack of reply, leaning back on his place on the bench and gazing into the sky. 

“If only we were lovers in those sappy Victorian romance books you love so much. We could marry our fortunes together and live in a big fuck off estate somewhere. Get a few horses. One goat. Like like Gone With The Wind. Without the war and tragedy of course, though.”

Harry has heard this before too. 

“I don’t think there’s any estates like that in Michigan.”

Louis turns to him with a dubious glare in his eyes, “I’m going to kill you off and keep our fortunes for myself. Our goat could love me better than you do. You have no faith in my abilities to get us a nice house.”

Louis sits up, digging his hands into the bag he’s taken a habit of carrying about with him everywhere they go. 

“Look!” He shouts with glee, a cut out from a newspaper clutched in his hand that he swiftly transfers into Harry’s own. 

It’s an advert for an open house. Some big, luxurious yet warm apartment in New York, 14 hours away from their town. 

Harry might not admit it aloud, but it looks like a dream to him. He can see the city lights sparkle through the large windows, a piano set up in the corner and no doubt the vibrant hum of Broadway trickling through the cracks in the door, all in the little black and white print on the paper. He thinks he might be in love. 

“See! You can trust your dashing husband to find you a nice house, darlin’.” 

It might not just be the house Harry is a little in love with though, as his eyes meet Louis’ own, bright with excitement. 

“We have no money, Louis,” Harry mumbles. He knows it’s all a joke to Louis. He knows  _ Louis  _ knows that they don’t have any so-called fortunes, and they’re certainly not in love, but it still punctures a hole in Harry’s heart, knowing at 21 years old with no prospects in this town other than flipping patties in a diner, he’s probably never going to live out his dreams in what he likes to think of as  _ ‘Real America’. _

“We do have something,” Louis says, the excitement in his eyes not dimming for a second. His hand retrieves his wallet from his bag this time, which is looking a little bit more fat than it did two months ago. 

He turns to Harry again, this time looking a little more serious in the brow, a sight rarely seen. “Listen,” He reaches out, grasping one of Harry’s hands. “I’ve got 1000 in here. It’s not loads, and it’s not gonna buy us this apartment, but I was thinking, right? What if we head for New York and work little jobs here and there, maybe hitch-hike for a bit of it, take some shitty buses, and maybe we can rent somewhere? Work our way up?” 

This is the first time Louis has seemed to have planned something ever in his entire 23 years of life, and it makes Harry pause, his palms a little sweaty. 

Because there’s nothing more he’d give travel across America with Louis at his side, to make coins that will turn into dollars that will turn into a little apartment in the city, but it’s so unrealistic, because he has a shift at the diner at 6 and his mother needs him to make dinner tonight at 11, if she even comes home, that is. He has responsibilities. 

“Please, you know i’m so fucking fed up with this place. There’s nothing here for us! I know you don’t like to think of it, but our families don’t give a shit about us and no one else does either,” Louis pleads, hand gripping Harry’s in a vice grip. “We could really make this work! Just you and me. It’s all we need. We could finally be  _ somebodies _ ,  _ somewhere _ . In proper America, not this phony excuse of a place. Do you really want to be stuck here forever? Washing chip grease out your hair and running after your mom’s boyfriend of the month?”

Louis looks down, looking tired in his soul in a way he hasn’t for a long time, “I know I sure as fuck can’t spend another night under the same roof as the bastard that calls himself my father. I can’t do it. But I  _ can  _ do this.  _ We  _ can do this.“

It stings. It slaps him in the face and calls him a fool because it’s true. But it’s also stupid, It’s such a pipe dream and he knows Louis is probably only right about how shit this town and their families are and he is probably completely wrong about how easy it’ll be to come by money on this journey.

But then he looks into Louis’ eyes, the bags under them tinted by the endless nights he must’ve worked at the shop to get this money. He sees the life they’ve had and the life they could have. He looks at the way Louis holds his hand, and the little photo of his dream home in the other, and he can’t help himself from nodding, in that moment. His heart bubbling with something rich and tingling as the other boy tugs him into a hug, chattering away in excitement and relief. 

He’s always been a bit of a fool.

-

It turns out Louis’ bag he’s been lugging about has had all the essentials for making a break from this town tucked into it the whole time, and it sits on Harry’s mind a little, the thought that Louis may have left without him had he not said yes, but he can’t think about it too much because Louis tugging him into the local convenience store, and Harry’s here now. He’s going with him  _ now _ .

Louis still insists they need something to take with them on the journey though, so they look about the store for 20 minutes before they settle on Cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies. 

Harry’s not sure why these are the only things they picked up, but Louis says it’s enough and that boy is very, very convincing when he wants to be. 

Before they head off, he and Louis visit their two little attached homes to pick up some of Harry’s clothes and a few of the items he holds dear to him, like the baseball Louis threw through his window at 8 years old and a small photo of his father from the war. 

With one last parting glance, he closes his front door and lets Louis lead the way.

-

Louis is steadfast in their journey, hardly stopping to think as he searches out the next and cheapest form of transport that will get them in the direction of New York. 

They couldn’t get any type of formal transport that would get them out of their little town far enough though, so with little hesitation, Louis guides Harry towards the interstate, his thumb whipped out to catch a car while the other guides his pie to his mouth for a munch.

Eventually a truck pulls up, guided by a travel worn trucker with deep wrinkles and a kind smile, saying he’s heading to Saginaw and that’s as far as he can go.

And Harry stops in his tracks, watching Louis head to the squeaky door.

There’s no going back after this point, really. He either stays where he is and lives a life of mopping up grease, a life without  _ Louis _ , or he steps on this truck and heads head first into a new life, a life away from everything he’s ever known. 

“Louis,” Harry says, watching the boy stop and whip his head around at him, a small smile curled on his lips, eyes brightened and full with a good pie and the prospect of a new life. 

“What’s up?” Louis asks.

That’s all it takes, really. He’d go anywhere, if it meant he’d be beside this boy til’ the end.

“Nothing,” Harry smiles, and follows Louis on their journey to  _ America _ .

-

They hitch-hiked from Saginaw to Pittsburgh in four days. 

It was depressing, chilly and sometimes smelling rather rotten as they hopped from car to truck to car again, sharing tight spaces with strangers and staying in motel rooms on an even tighter budget. 

Each night Louis would whisper across their shared bed about the dreams he has of New York, about how he’ll become an actor tap dancing his way across Broadway, or maybe a Journalist writing up exposés on crooked politicians. 

And Harry would curl up on his side, talking of his dream to be a singer, or a poet, or a writer, watching fondly as Louis’ hands hover above them in the bed, twirling and clasping at imaginary dreams they share.

-

They caught a greyhound from Pittsburgh to New Jersey. It was marginally more comfortable to share a space with grumpy men in suits and lost women than it was to share a space in a truck, but god was it boring without the company of a man in his 60s detailing the adventures he had in his journeys and youth, half made up but all the more entertaining. 

So they made their own entertainment, laughing on the bus, shoulders flush together. Louis would press his face against the glass of the window at passing cars, watching parents tut at him and children giggle in glee. 

Harry would watch his lips form stories of the people around them, teeth sharp and words smooth. 

“The man in the gabardine suit is a spy,” Louis says with conviction, fingertips curling into the denim of his worn jacket. 

Harry snorts, leaning in and pressing his lips into the shell of Louis’ ear. Too close, but they’ve been like that recently. 

“Be careful, his bow-tie is really a camera.” 

Louis releases a dramatic gasp, drawing the attention of the commuters and sending themselves into giggles. 

They doze with their heads resting together, Harry’s eyes drifting shut easily as the bus rumbles and Louis’ breaths deepen. 

-

Along the way, the bus breaks down. 

The time until the next Greyhound is longer than it should be, so he and Louis find themselves camped up on a hill that overlooks the highway, Louis wrapped up in Harry’s raincoat as the winds grow cold.

“Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat,” Harry asks, sleepiness still rich in his veins. 

Louis almost looks too comfortable wrapped up in his coat, like a cosy cat that’s made its home in a lap, too content for anyone to disturb it. 

“We smoked the last one an hour ago,” Louis mumbles, digging in his bag for some entertainment. 

So Harry looks at the scenery, Louis reading his magazine, as the moon rises over the open field. 

Soon Harry finds his eyes drawn to the boy beside him again, watching the moonlight dance over his face. 

In that moment, he almost leans down, wanting to make their lips meet. It feels so natural, being so close to this boy all his life and being even closer now that they’ve shared motel rooms, brushing teeth while one took a piss and waking up curled around each other like drifting otters. 

But their Greyhound comes, and they pack up, off to look for  _ America  _ once again. 

-

Somewhere in New Jersey, Harry begins to doubt his impulsive decision of following Louis into the wild. 

It was stupid, selfish in a way. He never said it wasn’t. But as they grow closer to the  _ Big Apple _ , the City of dreams, Harry can’t help but feel like he’s chasing clouds and about to have a nasty wakeup call when he and Louis end up on the streets because they can’t pay to have a roof over their heads. 

This doesn’t feel like the American dream he thought he longed for. He just feels empty, and aching, and he doesn’t know why.

“Louis, I’m lost,” Harry speaks into the silence of the motel room, though he knew he was sleeping.

Or at least he thought he was, but the other boy rolls over and peeps and eye out over the covers at Harry, soft and blue. 

Carefully, Louis wraps an arm around Harry’s waist, cosying up to him, and before Harry can overthink it, overthink anything, their noses brush and then their lips follow, pressing together in the most innocent of touches.

Harry’s hand curls on the soft skin of Louis’ forearm, their lips parting after a minute, or an hour. 

“It’s okay,” Louis whispers, “We’ll be okay.”

-

They have just hours to go before they reach New York. 

They’ve passed the time counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, the road stretching long with water on each side, Manhattan rising in the horizon.

This is  _ America, _ or so they say in the films and books and songs.

Yet it all looks so grey, and the horns and faces of the drivers around them are so harsh, and Harry wishes the sight of the skyscrapers ignited something warm in him, a feeling of worth, the prospect of something new, the feeling of  _ home _ , but the tall grey buildings only loom on him, like judgemental giants. 

But when he looks down and sees Louis’ fingers curled into his own, the soft puffs of breath of his lover on his neck, then he feels that warmth. Then he feels he is worthy of something great, filled so fantastically with the feeling that he might still be lost and a little scared, but no matter where he goes, his home will be right by his side the whole way.


End file.
